Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz (Orphan X)

Release Date: January 29, 2019
Minotaur Books

Evan Smoak is the Nowhere Man. A man who moves in the shadows and helps people. He is also the former assassin Orphan X. In Out of the Dark he is back and ready for his most difficult and dangerous assignment yet. He is going to kill the President of the United States. When he was twelve years old Smoak was taken from a foster home and trained to become part of a deadly black operations force. The Orphan program produced the deadliest assassins and prepared them to serve their country. When Evan decided to leave they powers behind the program attempted to terminate him. In the previous books we learned that Evan wasn’t the only target of termination. All of the Orphans had been targeted. The man who issued the orders to terminate Orphan X was the President of the United States. All Evan knows is that the reasons are attached to his first mission. For some reason something attached to that mission is viewed as dangerous to the career of the current President. So Evan realizes that the only way to make himself safe is to kill the President before he is killed.

The Orphan X novels are enjoyable. They keep the pages turning. This newest book in the series is no exception. Gregg Hurwitz does an excellent job in each novel developing the character a little more each time. Evan Smoak is not just a two-dimensional cutout. He is a fascinating character who develops a little more each time we meet him. Smoak is flawed. His training leaves him unable to engage in normal human relationships. He doesn’t know how to navigate the world of dating. We feel Evan’s loneliness and we can’t help but hope that somehow he will end up with Mia and Peter. In some of the Orphan X novels the pacing has been slow. Not so in this novel. The pace is fast and the action is always moving. It is a great addition to the series. Definitely the best book to date. I look forward to more Orphan X books in the future.  

The Blood of Alexander by Tom Wilde

How to describe Blood of Alexander by Tom Wilde? It is a modern day, high tech, caper, thriller, adventure, spy, crime novel. It is not really any of those things. It is a mashup of them all. The novel opens with our hero, Jonathan Blake, visiting the site of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. These 6^thcentury statues were destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001. Our hero is here to purchase a stolen artifact from a local warlord and opium dealer. The scene is reminiscent of a classic James Bond opening. Complete with a double dealing arms dealer and a dramatic escape.

It turns out that our hero works for the Argo Foundation,  a private organization that is dedicated to the preservation of historical artifacts. It does so through means both legal and extralegal. Blake is the prime operative on the less than legal side. His job is to find stolen artifacts and steal them from the thieves. This is not an altogether altruistic organization. They turn around and either gain the insurance money, or sell the item to private donors who will preserve the artifacts.

Unfortunately for our hero the US government learns of his abilities and forces him to help them track down a mysterious character named Vanya. Vanya is a villain right out of the James Bond playbook. He has seemingly unlimited financial resources, minions, his own private island, yacht, and helipad. He has a deadly female right hand. All he wants is to take over the world using secrets that he will find in the tomb of Alexander the Great.

The story unfolds very much like a James Bond film. Yes, this is the third time that I’ve mentioned Bond because the pacing, hero, and villains are all reminiscent of a James Bond film. The hero is constantly getting into impossible situations and escaping through improbable means. After a while you find yourself wait for the next moment of betrayal or amazing escape. There is also a little of Clive Cussler here because you have the expert in artifacts along with the slightly strained re-writing of history.

Over all the book is very enjoyable. The pacing is fast and the characters are fun if not overly developed. If you love James Bond movies from the early Roger Moore era then I think that you will find a lot to enjoy in this novel. I certainly hope that Wilde will write more of these books in the future.

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Trick Soldier by L. Ron Hubbard

An officer who meets an old nemesis, an enlisted man who hates to walk, and a temporary officer who is always losing things. These are some of the characters you will meet in this collection of three short stories from L. Ron Hubbard.

In "Trick Soldier" a spit and polish captain stationed in Haiti gets a new lieutenant only to discover that it is his old nemesis from his early years in the Corps. Now they are thrown together with a mutinous group of native soldiers on their hands. In "He Walked To War" we are introduced to Sergeant Egbert Zacharia Golingame, known as EZ Go to his comrades. All he wants is to get out of the infantry and into the air corps because he doesn’t like to walk. He gets his transfer and more than he bargained for. Finally in “Machine Gun 21,000” we meet Captain Blake who seems to have a knack for losing things. This time it is a machine gun. And the enemy has found it.

L. Ron Hubbard was one a very prolific author during the heyday of pulp fiction. Trick Soldier collects three of his action stories set in the jungles of Haiti and Central America. Hubbard’s writing was of his time, but he is not unsympathetic towards the natives that his characters face. The soldier’s are not gung-ho types. Instead they are realistic ideas of the type of men who served in the Marine Corps and went where they were sent and did their best in bad situations. This is a very good collection, though a little short.  It is well worth the time to pick up some old, classic short stories from the golden age of pulps and lose yourself in the fun.

The Accident by Chris Pavone

Sometimes the publishing business can be murder. In The Accident it is. Isabel Reed, a literary agent has received an anonymous submission for a book. This is the book that every agent hopes for. It is a page-turning blockbuster, and it is real. It purports to be the unauthorized biography of a powerful media mogul. It has some very damning material in it. Not only does it implicate the mogul in shady business dealings, but also implicated him in government espionage and worse. Isabel contact her friend Jeff Fielder, a one-time up and coming editor whose life has started to fall apart. She knows that this book is right up Jeff’s alley. Jeff takes one look and realizes that he has the editor’s dream of a lifetime.

Unfortunately for Isabel and Jeff things are about to get really bad. It seems that veteran CIA operative Hayden Gray has decided that this manuscript will be too damaging to himself and the Agency. So he has taken on the task of tracking down the author. He is willing to do whatever he has to do in order to make certain that this manuscript never sees the light of day. He is not interested in violence, but he is more than willing to use it. As the copies of the manuscript proliferate, so does the body count. Now Isabel has to stay ahead of those chasing her in order to stay alive.

From New York to Zurich to Denmark to Los Angeles, the action is international and never stops.  Isabel has to stay alive and ahead of the men on her trail while keeping the manuscript safe. For her this is more than just business. For her this manuscript contains secrets about her own past and the revelations have shaken her to her core.

The Accident is a fast paced, well-written novel. All of the action takes place over a one day period, though the characters do flash back in their memories at times. There are some amazing plot twists and turns, some that I saw coming and some that I didn’t see. The characters are not the cardboard cutouts you encounter in so many action-thriller novels, but are well crafted and interesting.

In the end nothing was as it seemed. Chris Pavone has crafted an excellent book that you just don’t want to put down. If you enjoy edge of your seat thrillers then you should definitely check this book out. I look forward to many more books from this author.

Spy For Hire by Dan Mayland

Mark Sava has retired from the CIA and is taking it easy in Kyrgyzstan. He is spending his days playing board games with the old men of his new hometown. His girlfriend Daria is trying to be supportive, but she is ready for him to get back to work. In the meantime she is running several orphanages in the region. The action in the novel starts when two men forcibly remove a young boy from one of the orphanages. There is only one road out of the region so Daria calls Sava and asks him to stop them. He does and suddenly finds himself in the middle of an international crisis. This small boy seems to be wrapped up in some scheme that involves the CIA and Saudi Intelligence. Sava has few people he can trust. Before he knows it his own distant past comes back to trap him.

Now, with the help of only a few close friends and some old trusted colleagues he has to face down agents who want to use this boy to manipulate the future of a nation. Sava has to balance all of the stories he is hearing against the well being of the child. Since everyone seems to be telling him half truths his job is that much harder. Along the way Sava has to confront some of his own personal demons.

The book is well written and very interesting. You don't find a lot of novels focusing on this the Central Asian republics that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. While Sava shows himself to be tough as nails he tends to use his brain for than his brawn. His enemies are cunning and devious, so is he. They show themselves capable of kidnapping, so does he. He is not an anti-hero though. Sava may bend the rules, but he still operates by a code. In many ways Sava reminds me a lot of Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good spy thriller novel. This is my first Sava novel, but it will not be my last. I hope to see Sava, Daria, and the rest of this new crew back in action soon.

The Shadow Protocol by Andy McDermott

The Shadow Protocol

Andy McDermott

Bantam Dell

Release Date: January 28

Adam Gray is America’s new secret weapon in the war against terror. He is a highly trained agent. He also has another advantage he is armed with PERSONA. This top secret device allows his team to copy the memories from a person and implant them in his head. The effect only last 24 hours, but during that time he is able to access the memories, emotions, and skills of the other person. Now captured terrorists can have their memories extracted and he can learn all of their secrets. There is only one secret that he does not know: his own past.

His memory before PERSONA have been wiped. On a mission to stop a radioactive device from falling into the hands of terrorists he is confronted by shadows from his own past. Now he wants to find out who he is. He wants to know why he lost his memory. Little does he know that sometimes the most dangerous thing of all is the truth.

The Shadow Protocol is the first novel in a new series from bestselling author Ady McDermott. Featuring the mysterious Adam Gray, his faced paced novel keeps the story moving and fresh. Too many action authors get bogged down in technical details about some firearm or technological device. Instead he gives us a great story with great characters. The enigmatic Adam Gray is a puzzle. He seems to have little personality, but he is a top notch field agent. Bianca Childs, a PhD in neurochemistry, is brought in to join the team when her own mentor, a co-creator of the project, is wounded in the field. Bianca is not at all ready for what is in store for her, but she rises to the occasion. The rest of the team are fun characters. McDermott does not fully develop them, but they are interesting and there is plenty of room for these characters to grow.

Faced paced and exciting, this is a great new series. Adam Gray and Bianca Childs are sure to become favorites among the lovers of action novels. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book.

Bad Guys by Anthony Bruno

Title: Bad Guys

Author: Anthony Bruno

Publisher: Diversion Books

Release Date: January 28, 2014

Agent Mike Tozzi is tired of the bad guys getting away with murder. It seems that justice is not blind, unless you have connections, then it can’t see a thing. So he decides to even out the scales. Tozzi is tracking down the ones that got away. At the top of his list is the unknown man who murdered three undercover FBI agents and sent their severed heads back to the office. He has two problems. First, no one knows, or will say who the killer is or who he works for. Second, his old partner, Cuthbert Gibbons, has been brought out of retirement to bring him in.

Gibbons is a throwback to an earlier age. He still remembers the days when FBI agents hit the streets and did leg work. He spends his spare time catching up on his reading. His favorite subject is the history of Rome. It doesn’t take long for him to track down his old partner. Tozzi is able to persuade Gibbons to join him in his hunt for the killer. Against these two detectives is a shadowy underworld figure. No one seems to know the identity of the person who is pulling the strings since the leaders of some of the biggest crime families have 

This book is full of twists and turns and a lot of action. The story takes place in the mid-80s. The time of movies like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. It has all of the classic elements. It’s a buddy story, it’s a cop story, it’s an action story. At the heart is the search for justice in a changing world. The old FBI of Hoover is giving way to a new agency full of career men who look to computers. The world of organized crime is changing as well. Old loyalties and alliances give way to upstarts who don’t like getting their hands dirty and don’t want to come up in the organization the old way.

This book is fast paced, well written, and a lot of fun. If you enjoy classic action stories then this book is for you. One of the great things about the digital age is that great books like these can be brought back in to print. I enjoyed this and look forward to reading the others in the series.